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North Korea's nuclear test could teach a lot

North Korea’s latest underground test shows it is making big strides toward becoming a true nuclear power. But the test may also reveal key clues the secretive nation might have hoped to hide about how close, or how far away, it is from fielding a nuclear weapon capable of striking the United States or its allies.

Hoping to capitalize on a rare opportunity to gauge North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, intelligence and military officials around the region are scrambling to glean data to answer three big questions: How powerful was the device Pyongyang tested, what sort of device was it, and what progress does the test indicate the nation has made.

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North Korea hailed Tuesday’s test as a “perfect” success, saying it used a device that was stronger and more advanced than those in its past two attempts. Add that to its successful rocket launch in December and the threat of a North Korea ready to strike at the United States, which it sees as its arch-enemy, would appear to be more real than ever.

But just how close is it?

The main thing intelligence officials want to figure out is what kind of device was used. Was it a plutonium bomb, like the ones it tested in 2006 and 2009, or one that used highly enriched uranium?

James Acton, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said North Korea’s plutonium stockpile is small and it would be difficult and expensive for the North to produce more. But a test using highly enriched uranium, which is cheaper and easier to produce, would raise the threat that North Korea can expand its nuclear arsenal quickly.

“A highly enriched uranium test would be a significant development,” he said. “Unfortunately, we don’t yet have any evidence as to the device’s design yield or whether it was made from plutonium or highly enriched uranium.”

Finding that out is a race against time.

Joseph De Trani, former head of the National Counterproliferation Center, predicted U.S. intelligence would determine the size and composition of the nuclear device in one to three days based partly on radioactive elements released into the environment.

“Highly enriched uranium is something that degrades quickly, so you would have to collect within a 24-hour period,” especially because the traces from an underground explosion will be minimal, he said.

Neighboring Japan may provide some of those answers.

Its fighter jets were dispatched immediately after the test to collect atmospheric samples. Japan has also established land-based monitoring posts, including one on its northwest coast, to collect similar data.

But experts caution such monitoring doesn’t always work because test sites can be sealed to prevent tell-tale leaks. They also note that North Korea has proven it has the ability to mask its tests quite well. No radioactivity was detected after North Korea’s test in 2009.